I've told a bunch of you probably multiple times about how distracting the episodes of Gossip Girl in which Nate and Vanessa are dating are to me. It's really awful because they're my favorite Nate couple. Nate and Blair were cute but it was a relationship based on tradition and expectation. Because they dated as kids, and they were of similar breeding, it was just a given that they end up together. Nate and Serena, it always bothered me in the books, it wasn't any easier on TV. Nate and Jenny, just didn't work (though it was great in the books). All the older broads, and then Sage... they all sucked. But with Vanessa, they were just into each other for each other, not for anything else. So... that's weird to watch, especially if I have it playing in the background while I'm playing around in game. I look up and think, Troyyy, why are you kissing your sisterrrrrrr? Even worse? When I find a cute pic of the two of them, like a behind-the-scenes shot, and I know that in the scene they were making out or something.
But now... now it's the Carrie Diaries. I tried. I did. I think because Madalynne started dating Chris while the show was on summer break, and it's the only thing I know Austin Butler from, even though I made the connection immediately, it was easy to ignore. Parker and Chloe have been together for awhile and Chloe is a little more tomboyish, compared to AnnaSophia Robb as fashion-obsessed Carrie Bradshaw, so it was very easy to keep Robb as Chloe and Robb and Carrie very separate in my mind. But then, for whatever reason, maybe Madalynne, Parker, Chris, and Chloe all getting older, the last few episodes of this current season have me wanting to warn Parker and Madalynne that their sig others are cheating on them with each other.
It's so weird. But I'll force myself to get over it. At some point.
Moving on.
In the past year or two, I've become increasingly obsessed with keeping locations realistic. It started somewhat back when I created Sénia's first house, She blogged about how close they were to the subway, the Garden, a bunch of delis and stuff. Those were all legitimate landmarks, everything did exist relative to their address. I picked their home address randomly ( West 25th Street, either 258 or 268, I can't remember which right now, but it doesn't matter because neither one exists) and pieced together a bunch of photos. Then I started getting more specific about finding real addresses.
My obsession spread to other people (sorry) and some of us have a lot of fun with it, sometimes looking up new homes together and plotting a fantasy world where we can move and afford the mortgages on these places for real. Sénia's place, even after a $12 million down payment, would have a monthly mortgage payment of $280 thousand. And that's at a 5% rate, which is for people with great credit. You could get a whole house here for that. A really nice house. Some of these prices are just amazing. I can't even get my head around that. Someone who can afford these places could move across the state from NYC to Buffalo, and just buy a house in cash.
Anyway, my point is, I've done a lot of house hunting and neighborhood comparing in the NY Times Real Estate section, and some other cities as well (Brentwood, Tennessee features far more reasonable prices, Chelsea's mortgage is a "mere" $25 thousand). I mean a lot. I'm very nearly at the point where I can tell you just about anything about lower Manhattan, and I'm learning more about the Upper West Side. I can almost tell you what neighborhood you're talking about (Midtown, Chelsea, Garment District, Tribeca, etc) only by the street name or number. I've only been to NYC a few times, and I didn't spend that much time in Manhattan. Most of it was out in Queens. However, after all this, I don't think I'll have a problem.
Anyway, getting to my point, the first time I went, I made a huge deal out of getting a picture by Inscope Arch in Central Park when I saw it, recognizing it from Home Alone 2, where Kevin makes his final stand against Harry and Marv, when the pigeon lady rescues him by covering them with birdseed. Inscope is down near The Pond, way at the Southeast corner. When Kevin is running from Harry and Marv, after climbling down from the roof of his uncle's house, he calls the police and gives them the address of "Central Park West and 95th Street" and to look for fireworks. In all my research, I happen to know 95th is near the northern part of the park. So I decided to map that shit.
And I found that my suspicions were right. To enter the park near CPW and 95th, they'd actually have to go up a block to the 96th street entrance, and then hoof it south for at least 40 minutes. The police would probably still see the fireworks at Inscope from 95th, buuuut, they wouldn't exactly be able to just pull right up a few seconds later.
I wonder if this is something that bugs Manhattanites? I know pretty much everything about Bruce Almighty drove me crazy, all the inaccuracies, specifically the architectural ones. And there's a scene in one episode of Supernatural, Bad Day at Black Rock, that takes place in Buffalo, where Dean says it'll take two hours to get to Queens. NO! It will take at least six hours. Maybe five, the way Dean drives, because I did it in just over five, doing 90 almost the entire way. But seriously, not everything is "just outside of the city." Just because Buffalo is the second largest city in the state, it doesn't mean we're part of NYC. Then again, there are probably so many awful "mistakes" about New York City in so many movies and TV shows that residents just don't care anymore.